Winning Post

This week in Winning Post

The biggest weekend on the Australian sporting calendar is coming up and racing plays a key role.

It all kicks off on Friday night with the Group 1 Moir Stakes, where triple defending champ Buffering takes on world-champion sprinter Chautauqua.

As the Swans and Bulldogs fight out the AFL grand final on Saturday, there's a triple Group 1 meeting at Randwick.

Yankee Rose takes on the classic fillies in the Flight Stakes, while the open milers battle it out in the Epsom and the crack stayers contest the Metropolitan.

The next day, in the lead-up to the Sharks-Storm NRL grand final, it's Turnbull Stakes day at Flemington.

Your Winning Post will prove just as vital as your footy record, if not more so, and it's not just the Group 1s. We've got a stack of meetings covered as always.

Our form coverage kicks off on Friday with full form guides for Benalla, Dubbo and The Valley night meeting plus fields, colours and selections for Gunbower, Grafton and Sunshine Coast.

The metro racing this Saturday is at Caulfield in Melbourne, Randwick in Sydney, Morphettville in Adelaide, Doomben in Brisbane and Belmont in Perth.

Winning Post carries full-colour liftout guides for all those meetings plus Beaumont Newcastle (except Queensland) and Gold Coast (Queensland edition), as well as fields, tips, ratings and/or colours for other TAB Saturday cards.

On Sunday we've got liftout formguides for four more TAB meetings: the huge Flemington card plus Bairnsadale Cup day, Corowa and the Tasmanian action in Hobart, plus fields, ratings, tips and colours for a stack more Sunday and Monday programs.

Don't forget Winning Post now carries trackwork reports for all four Melbourne training tracks, all three in Sydney, Morphettville in Adelaide and a general Brisbane report.

Away from the form, we've got news columns from Queensland, NSW, six Victorian districts, SA and Tasmania.

Our readers have their say on page 4, while further back in the book Shane Templeton reminisces, Paul Richards presents his unique take on the sport, Tony Kneebone brings you his Snippets column and Number Cruncher delivers the stats that matter.

Winning Post costs $5 and is available Thursday afternoon in selected Melbourne newsagents, the crack of dawn Friday elsewhere.

... More

Tasmania: Boss Baz helps Raquel to treble .................................................................................................................................................

Western Victoria: Eric eyes Galleywood for rising star .................................................................................................................................................

NSW country: Recycled Zero now Scobie's hero .................................................................................................................................................

Winning Post Melbourne Thursday distribution .................................................................................................................................................

More Stories

Inside Winning Post October 1 edition you'll find liftout form guides for:

Friday:

The Valley (night), Benalla, Dubbo

Saturday:

Caulfield, Randwick, Morphettville, Doomben, Belmont, Beaumont Newcastle (except Queensland), Gold Coast (Queensland edition)

Sunday:

Flemington, Bairnsdale, Corowa, Hobart

Eye Catchers

Each week Paul Richards identifies horses from recent race meetings that he believes are ready to win. Here we update you when they are about to have their next start.

Caulfield Saturday - R5 N13 Najmaat

Caulfield Saturday - R6 N2 Nozomi

Royal Randwick Saturday - R6 N7 Awoke

Royal Randwick Saturday - R9 N11 Kaepernick

Flemington Sunday - R3 N6 Rocketeer

Results

Letter of the Week

No picnic out west

I find it a curious and baffling anomaly that there are no picnic race clubs and no picnic racing in the west of the Victoria. Can anyone explain why?
All picnic race clubs are in the east of the state, north and south. The nearest picnic venue to Stawell, for example, is Yea — 301 kilometres away. The furthest, Buchan (584km away), is unreachable.
This means that virtually all western stables are denied the opportunity to participate — to place horses needing a picnic win to boost confidence and to earn a little prizemoney for their connections. Cost-wise, it is simply not worth their while to travel over 300km to the nearest picnic race meeting at the risk of returning empty-handed.
It isn’t even feasible for western stables to hop over the border to South Australia because there is little picnic racing conducted there.
Racing in the west of Victoria is already considered the poor relation of the east and the absence of picnic race venues disadvantages it more. It’s an anomaly that needs to be corrected.
The west already has the perfect venue for picnic racing in Great Western, which is easily accessed from Melbourne and hosts just one “professional” meeting per year, in January.

Keith Lofthouse
Great Western (Vic)